2 Suspects in Mass Mailing of Extortion Threats Are Seized

Two men have been arrested in Las Vegas on suspicion of sending death-threat extortion letters to at least 265 Antelope Valley residents, Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said Monday.

The letters, mailed Nov. 1 from the Antelope Valley or Mojave area, demanded that as much as $600,000 be sent to other people, many of whom were prominent citizens and were themselves recipients of similar letters.

The suspects were identified as Roman S. Makuch, 27, and Richard M. Faroni, 26. Both reportedly lived in the Antelope Valley before moving to Las Vegas shortly after the mass mailing.

They were taken into custody during the weekend after sheriff’s detectives from the Antelope Valley reportedly served several search warrants in the Las Vegas area.

Criminal Complaint

Sheriff’s deputies did not offer much information about the suspects, other than to indicate that they were being held in the Nevada city on suspicion of attempted extortion. A criminal complaint will be sought from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office later this week.

Lou Bozigian, a real estate agent and former Lancaster mayor who was one of those targeted by the letter writers, said, “I’ve been here 34 years, and those names don’t ring a bell with me at all. I’ve talked to quite a few people this morning, and no one seems to know them.”

As for how the two were identified, said Sgt. Bob Riley, spokesman for the sheriff’s Lancaster office, “it was following up on little leads and plain old footwork by the detectives.”

For one thing, Sheriff’s Information Bureau deputies said, investigators discovered that one of the recipients had died six months before, and the date of his death helped detectives figure out where a mailing list might have been obtained.

Although the letters were personalized to indicate that the writers knew details about those being threatened, Deputy Kathryn Nielsen said the investigators found that some were sent to addresses where the recipients had not lived for six months or a year--or had never lived at all.

“Some of the references made in the letters were readily available in the local newspapers,” Nielsen said.

Investigators, she added, concluded quickly that the letter writers were not really watching the recipients and did not have day-to-day knowledge about them and their families.

“They (the detectives) came forward with that to allay fears two days after the letters were reported,” she said.

She could not explain why anyone would send extortion letters demanding that money be sent to someone else. The investigators, she said, “will be looking into the reason behind something of this nature.”

Community Concerned

Bozigian said people in the community have been worried “because they thought that anyone who would go to this much trouble might not be averse to harming someone.”

He said one theory was that the writers sent letters to numerous people in the hope that one or two would die, and they could then pursue actual payoffs from others who would be convinced that they meant business.

At the time the letters began arriving, Riley said, most of the recipients were “affluent people . . . who have the wherewithal to write a check for whatever amount was requested.”